Jada Pinkett Smith admits she started dating Will before he was divorced from his first wife
By Maria Pasquini
Will Smith wasn’t divorced when he and Jada Pinkett Smith began their relationship.
In an interview with Access, Pinkett Smith and her mother Adrienne Banfield-Jones opened up about how Smith was separated from his first wife, Sheree Zampino, but not quite divorced when the couple, who have been married for 20 years, started dating.
“I think initially when Will first called you, I think he was still married or he was just separated, or something, and I said, he’s not available to you,” Banfield-Jone said, after revealing she wasn’t the biggest fan of the 49-year-old actor at first.
“He was ‘div,’ ” Pinket Smith, 46, replied. “The ‘orced’ hadn’t happened yet.”
Zampino also opened up about what it was like to “co-mother” her son Trey with Pinkett Smith while appearing as the first guest on the actress’s new Facebook Watch talk show Red Table Talk.
“That’s our first episode. That’s our Mother’s Day episode,” Pinkett Smith said. “I thought it was important to have that conversation because she was my entry point to motherhood. I was co-mothering with her. At that particular time, before [having a blended family] was popular, before it was even an idea, we were trying to create something that we had never experienced.”
She added, “We came from broken homes. We didn’t have a blue print. We just had an idea. This is what we think we want. This is what we want to try to do for Trey.”
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Banfield-Jones added that while some may have assumed the decision to co-mother Trey was easy for the two women, she said “it didn’t start out that way.”
“Absolutely. It’s constantly unfolding. I think now after 23 years we just have a maturity and an understanding that it’s a process,” Pinkett Smith agreed.
Pinkett Smith will host the new show alongside her mother as well as her 17-year-old daughter, singer Willow Smith.
“Red Table Talk is about raw truth, love and deep passion. My mother is old school, Willow is new school, and I find myself right in the middle,” Pinkett Smith told PEOPLE in April. “I’ve done a lot of sharing and growing on Facebook. Being able to engage with the Facebook Watch community in such a deeply personal way is amazing, and I’m excited to be part of something new.”
“As a 17-year-old, it’s important for me to be able to talk openly about what’s going on in my life … there have been too many times I have felt alone,” Willow said.
Red Table Talk will premiere on Facebook’s video platform, Facebook Watch, on Monday, May 7.
